Malcolm X Grassroots Movementhttps://mxgm.org
Wed, 25 Feb 2015 19:40:49 +0000en-UShourly1mxgmhttps://feedburner.google.comCommemorative Weekend for Mayor Chokwe Lumumbahttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/mxgm/~3/2GFsl4TVUqk/
https://mxgm.org/commemorative-weekend-for-mayor-chokwe-lumumba/#commentsWed, 25 Feb 2015 19:40:49 +0000https://mxgm.org/?p=3203Cooperation Jackson, the New Afrikan People’s Organization, the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, and the Jackson People’s Assembly invite you to join us for the First Annual Commemorative Weekend for Mayor Chokwe Lumumba on Friday, February 27th and Saturday, February 28th. The Commemorative Weekend is a celebration of the life and legacy of Mayor Lumumba and a promotion of the ongoing work of the two institutions, Cooperation Jackson and the People’s Assembly, that are advancing his vision of self-determination and social liberation.

The Commemorative Weekend is also a benefit Cooperation Jackson and the Chokwe Lumumba Center for Economic Democracy and Development. Cooperation Jackson is currently seeking to raise $200,000 to help advance strategic aspects of its work. A portion of the funds will support improvements for the Lumumba Center, such as a new roof, solar panel installation, entertainment and recording systems, and a state of the art kitchen for the Nubia’s Place Cafe. A portion will also support the transformative work of Cooperation Jackson to build a sustainable, live-work community in West Jackson that will create living wage jobs and permanently affordable housing.

Individuals and organizations wishing to contribute can do so by check or money order made out to Cooperation Jackson. Mail checks or money orders to Cooperation Jackson P.O. Box 1932 Jackson, MS 39215. Online donations can be made at http://www.cooperationjackson.org/donate2/. Donations will also be taken on site at the Lumumba Center and Word and Worship Church.

The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement is in full solidarity with the movement of our people against the ongoing and relentless terrorism and violence by Federal, State, and local police and vigilantes in defense of white supremacy. These extra judicial murders of our people that occur at least every 28 hours as outlined in the MXGM report “Operation Ghetto Storm”, are committed against us without regard to gender, class sexuality or age. This requires that the masses of our people, male, female, LGBTQ, elders and youth of every class organize ourselves and refuse to continue to cooperate with this government or to allow this society to have peace until we New Afrikans (Black people) have justice. These are the minimal demands that the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement fights for alongside the masses of our people. If these demands are not met we call on our people to become “ungovernable” through massive displays of civil disobedience, boycotts, shutdowns and disruption of the smooth running of the infrastructure. A people united, determined and resistant cannot be defeated!

We demand an immediate end to the war on drugs which is in fact a war on Black and poor people.

We demand an immediate end to police “stop and frisk”, “jump out”, “racial profiling” and other policies connected to so-called “broken window theory.

We demand the immediate decriminalization of marijuana and the, subsequent targeting, arrests and imprisonment of black youth which is out of proportion to arrests of white youth involved in similar activities.

We demand an immediate demilitarization of police and the elimination of military surplus, drones and various surveillance operations being used on our people. The funds used for these weapons can be redirected to social programs to house, educate and provide healthcare and programs to prevent domestic and intra-community violence for our people.

We demand that police who patrol our communities must be hired from and must live in the community, which they serve as an absolute condition of employment.

6.We demand an end to “no knock” warrant laws and “no name” warrant laws that increase the potential for violent interactions with police.

7.We demand that police and vigilantes who stop, attack or harm Black people who legally carry either openly or concealed weapons be immediately prosecuted, for assault, or murder.

8.We demand recognition of the human right to defend ourselves against unwarranted attacks by police and vigilantes who assault us in our homes, stores and communities.

We demand the establishment of independent, community based boards of review with the power to fire, subpoena, and indict police and other vigilantes who murder our people without just cause.

We demand an end to the “school to prison pipeline” which targets black youth and criminalizes in school activities resulting in arrests, indictments, trials and convictions contributing to the social and economic marginalization of an entire generation.

We demand an end to mass incarceration. End the so-called prison, industrial complex, the privatization of prisons and the insertion of a profit motive into the American justice system which then targets, arrests, prosecutes and imprisons millions of our people for the financial benefit of US corporations in a twenty-first century slave system.

We demand the release of political prisoners and prisoners of war being held in US custody and an end to the pursuit and persecution of political exiles. These are our freedom fighters and members of civil rights, human rights and Black Power era organizations, many who have been held prisoner or exiled for over 30 years.

We call for a truth, justice and reconciliation process such as the processes held in South Africa after apartheid and in Argentina after the fall of the fascist dictatorship to create a healing among our people and between our people and the U.S. State.

We call on a full investigation by the United Nations and other international bodies, of United States violations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) as it relates to the treatment of Black and other oppressed people’s inside USA borders.

We urge that the United States be charged with willful genocide against Black people in the United States and that reparations be paid for the destruction and undermining of the cultural, social, economic and political resources of our national community through the war on drugs and militarized police and vigilante violence.

The International Decade for People of African Descent is a follow through initiative of the World Conference against Racism, Xenophobia and Related Intolerances, last held in 2001 in Durban, South Africa (see http://www.un.org/WCAR/ for more details). Although the International Decade is being “officially” called by the United Nations and its member states, it is happening because grassroots and “civil society” organizations from around the world have applied constant pressure and demands on the United Nations and the members states – particularly those on the African continent, the America’s, the Caribbean, and the Europe Union.

The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (MXGM), along with the December 12th Movement International Secretariat (D12), the Durban Declaration and Program Watch Group (DDPA Watch), and the Latin American and Caribbean Community Center (LACCC), have played leading roles in the United States in maintaining this pressure and advancing various programmatic demands and follow through from the United Nations and the member states.

The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement has been instrumental in advancing the Durban Declaration and Program of Action (DDPA) in the United States to raise key structural demands on the government (see http://www.un.org/WCAR/durban.pdf for the document). The primary demand raised by the organization has been for the creation of a National Program of Action for Racial Justice to address the systemic aspects of racial inequality and inequity at the heart of the settler-colonial project that is the United States. This comprehensive plan, if backed with sufficient political force, could serve as a “Marshall Plan for Black people” that would address racial profiling, mass incarceration, chronic health disparities, education disparities, housing inequities, and a range of other economic, social, and cultural rights issues (see https://mxgm.org/the-national-plan-of-action-for-racial-justice-short-explanation-of-what-it-is/ for more details).

The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement and Cooperation Jackson, one of the primary vehicles created by the organization to execute the Jackson-Kush Plan (see http://navigatingthestorm.blogspot.com/2012/05/the-jackson-kush-plan-and-struggle-for.html for more details), will be spearheading a series of events in January 2015 to kick off the decade and raise broad awareness regarding the International Decade, press the demand for a National Program of Action, strengthen the movement for self-determination and advance the struggle for economic democracy. The Malcolm X Grassroots Movements core programming for the Decade will be conducted in Jackson, Mississippi in conjunction with Cooperation Jackson at the Chokwe Lumumba Center for Economic Democracy and Development located at 939 W. Capitol Street, Jackson, MS 39203 (see https://cooperationjackson.squarespace.com/lumumba-center/ for more details).

We encourage all people of African descent to support our efforts and join us utilizing the International Decade to advance our international struggle for reparations, economic development, and self-determination.

“We must practice revolutionary democracy in every aspect of our Party life. Every responsible member must have the courage of his responsibilities, exacting from others a proper respect for his work and properly respecting the work of others. Hide nothing from the masses of our people. Tell no lies. Expose lies whenever they are told. Mask no difficulties, mistakes, failures. Claim no easy victories….” – Amilcar Cabral

Brief Synopsis

People denied their agency and power and subjected to external authority need vehicles to exercise their self-determination and exert their power. A People’s Assembly is a vehicle of democratic social organization that, when properly organized, allows people to exercise their agency, exert their power, and practice democracy – meaning “the rule of the people, for the people, by the people” – in its broadest terms, which entails making direct decisions about the economic, social and cultural operations of a community or society and not just the contractual (“civil”) or electoral and legislative (the limited realm of what is generally deemed to be “political”) aspects of the social order.

What the People’s Assembly Is

A People’s Assembly first and foremost is a mass gathering of people organized and assembled to address essential social issues and/or questions pertinent to a community.

“Mass” can be and is defined in numerous ways depending on one’s views and position, but per the experience of the New Afrikan People’s Organization (NAPO) and the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (MXGM) in Jackson, Mississippi, we define it as a body that engages at least 1/5th of the total population in a defined geographic area (neighborhood, ward or district, city, state, etc.). We have arrived at this 1/5th formula based on our experience of what it takes to have sufficient numbers, social force, and capacity to effectively implement the decisions made by the assembly and ensure that these actions achieve their desired outcomes.

“Addressing essential social issues”, means developing solutions, strategies, action plans, and timelines to change various socio-economic conditions in a desired manner, not just hearing and/or giving voice to the people assembled.
Secondly, another defining characteristic of a truly democratic Assembly is that it calls for and is based upon “one person, one vote”. Agency is vested directly in individuals, regardless of if the Assembly makes decisions by some type of voting process or some form of consensus. This aspect of direct engagement, direct democracy, and individual empowerment is what separates a People’s Assembly from other types of mass gatherings and formations, such as Alliances or United Fronts, where are multitude of social forces are engaged.

However, given these two basic defining characteristics, it should be noted that there are still different types of People’s Assembly’s. Within NAPO/MXGM we break Assemblies down into 3 essential types.

United Front or Alliance based Assembly. This type of Assembly is typically a democratic forum that is populated and driven by formally organized entities (i.e. political parties, unions, church’s, civic organizations, etc.) that mobilize their members to participate in broad open decision making sessions with members from other organizations and/or formations. What makes this different then a typical alliance or coalition is that the organizations and their leaders do not make the decisions on behalf of their members in these spaces; members make decisions as individuals within the general body. The main limitation with this type of Assembly formation is that they tend to remain “top heavy”. The various organizational leaders often to do not disseminate adequate information about meetings, or inform their members about decisions and activities of the Assembly. And there is the problem is that many organizations do not have consolidated members or a base that they can turn out, instead they are legitimated by their history, social position, or the charisma of their leadership.

Constituent Assembly. This type of Assembly is a representative body, not a direct democratic body of the people in their totality. This type of Assembly is dependent on mass outreach, but is structured, intentionally or unintentionally, to accommodate the material (having to work, deal with childcare, etc.) and social limitations (interest, access to information, political and ideological differences, etc.) of the people. The challenge with this type of Assembly is that if it doesn’t continue to work to bring in new people (particularly youth) and struggle and strive politically to be mass in its character, then it tends to become overly bureaucratic and stagnant over time.

Mass Assembly. The Mass Assembly is the broadest example of people’s democracy. It normally emerges during times of acute crisis, when there are profound ruptures in society. These types of Assemblies are typically all-consuming, short-lived entities. Their greatest weakness is that they typically demand those engaged to give all of their time and energy to the engagement of the crisis, which over time is not sustainable, as people eventually have to tend to their daily needs in order to sustain themselves, their families, and communities.

The Jackson Assembly Model

At present, the Jackson People’s Assembly operates in a space in-between a Constituent and Mass Assembly. In the main, it operates as a Constituent Assembly, engaging in a number of strategic campaigns (such as defending the 1% Sales Tax which was voted in by the residents of Jackson in January 2014) and initiatives (such as support for Cooperation Jackson, see www.CooperationJackson.org for more details) to address the material needs of our social base and to extend its power. This is based primarily on the material limitations imposed on the base and the members of the People’s Task Force (see below for more details on the Task Force) by the daily grinds of the capitalist social order (i.e. tending to work, child care, health, and transportation challenges, etc.). There have also been some political challenges it has confronted over the past year adjusting both to the Mayoral ship of Chokwe Lumumba and how to relate to it, and how to address the sudden loss of Mayor Lumumba and the counter-reaction to the people’s movement that facilitated the election of Mayor Tony Yarber in April 2014. However, during times of crisis the Assembly tends to take on more of a mass character, such as during the immediate passing of Mayor Lumumba in late February 2014 to defend the People’s Platform (devised by the Assembly) and many of the initiatives the Lumumba administration was pursuing to fulfill it. It should be noted however, that even though the current practice in Jackson tends towards the Constituent model, the aim is to grow into a permanent Mass Assembly.

The People’s Assemblies that MXGM and NAPO are working to build in Jackson and throughout the state of Mississippi, particularly its eastern Black belt portions, are designed to be vehicles of Black self-determination and the autonomous political authority of the oppressed peoples’ and exploited classes contained within the state. The Assemblies are organized as expressions of participatory or direct democracy, wherein there is guided facilitation and agenda setting provided by the committees that compose the People’s Task Force, but no preordained hierarchy. The People’s Task Force is the working or executing body of the Assembly. The Task Force is composed of committees that are organized around proposals emerging from the Assembly to carry out various tasks and initiatives, such as organizing campaigns (like Take Back the Land) and long-term institution building and development work (like land trusts and cooperative housing).

The People’s Assemblies model advanced by MXGM and NAPO as a core component of the J – K Plan have a long, rich history in Mississippi and in the Black Liberation Movement in general. The roots of our Assembly model are drawn from the spiritual or prayer circles that were organized often clandestinely by enslaved Afrikans to express their humanity, build and sustain community, fortify their spirits and organize resistance. The vehicle gained public expression in Mississippi with the organization of “Negro Peoples Conventions” at the start of Reconstruction to develop autonomous programs of action to realize freedom, as Afrikans themselves desired it and to determine their relationship to the defeated governments of the Confederacy and the triumphant government of the Federal Republic.

This expression of people’s power remerged time and again in the New Afrikan communities of Mississippi as a means to resist the systemic exploitation and terror of white supremacy and to exercise and exert some degree of self-determination. The last great expression of this vehicle of Black people’s self-determined power in Mississippi occurred in the early 1960’s. It was stimulated by a campaign of coordinated resistance organized by militant local leaders like Medgar Evers that drew on the national capacity and courage of organizations like the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). This campaign created the democratic space necessary for New Afrikan communities in Mississippi to organize themselves to resist more effectively. Broad, participatory-based People’s Assemblies were the most common form of this self-organization. One of the most memorable outgrowths of this wave of Peoples Assemblies in Mississippi was the creation of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MSFDP), which challenged the hegemonic control over the Black vote on a state and local level since the New Deal, and remains a vehicle that serves as a constant reminder for the need for genuine Black equality and self-determination to this day.

2 Basic Functions of a People’s Assembly

Regardless of their type, People’s Assemblies have two broad functions and means of exercising power:

They organize “autonomous”, self-organized and executed social projects. Autonomous in this context means initiatives not supported or organized by the government (state) or some variant of monopoly capital (finance or corporate industrial or mercantile capital). These types of projects range from organizing community gardens to forming people’s self-defense campaigns to housing occupations to forming workers unions to building workers cooperatives. On a basic scale these projects function typically as “serve the people” or “survival programs” that help the people to sustain themselves or acquire a degree of self-reliance. On a larger scale these projects provide enough resources and social leverage (such as flexible time to organize) to allow the people to engage in essential fight back or offensive (typically positional) initiatives.

They apply various types of pressure on the government and the forces of economic exploitation in society. Pressure is exerted by organizing various types of campaigns against these forces, including mass action (protest) campaigns, direct action campaigns, boycotts, non-compliance campaigns, policy shift campaigns (either advocating for or against existing laws or proposed or pending legislation), and even electoral campaigns (to put someone favorable in an office or to remove someone adversarial from office).

How to Carry Out the Functions of the Assembly

In order to carry out these critical functions, an Assembly must organize its proceedings to produce clear demands, a coherent strategy, realistic action plans, and concrete timelines. It must also organize itself into units of implementation, committee’s or action groups, to carry out the various assignments dictated by the strategy and action plans.

When considering these functions and how they are executed In Jackson, it is critical to note that our model makes clear distinctions between the Assembly as an “event”, the Assembly as a “process”, and the Assembly as an “institution”. In Jackson, the Assembly, as an event, is where we take up general questions and issues and deliberate and decide on what can, should, and will be done to address it. The process of the Assembly, where the more detailed questions of strategy, planning, and setting concrete timelines, measurable goals, and deliverables are refined is conducted through the People’s Task Force and the various committees and working groups of the Assembly. The Assembly as an institution is a product of the combined social weight of the Assembly’s events, processes, actions, and social outcomes.

Basic Organizing Assumptions

There are three basic assumptions that are being made in this paper that must be surfaced for anyone thinking of organizing a People’s Assembly (following this model or any other model in our experience and study). In our experience, forces attempting to organize a People’s Assembly that don’t explicitly address these assumptions tend to struggle and/or outright fail. These assumptions are:

The social forces organizing the People’s Assembly must have the ability to mobilize and assemble a significant amount of people to participate and engage in a democratic process (review our 1/5th formula above). This typically means that the social force or forces organizing the Assembly have already built a significant base and are able to or committed to scaling up.

The social forces organizing the People’s Assembly have experience participating in, and ideally facilitating broad democratic processes (participating in democratic processes is more important than having experience facilitating a processes, as facilitation is a skill we encourage all to learn and should not be a prerequisite of participation).

The social forces organizing the People’s Assembly are willing or experienced in engaging in broad democratic processes guided by norms established, accepted, and self-enforced by the assembled body (see Key Components below).

Key Components of the Assembly “Event”

In order to make sure that the Assembly as an event is effective, we recommend that each of the following be clearly articulated and in place.

Group Norms and Codes of Conduct. These should be co-constructed by the participants of the Assembly, and should be crafted at the start of an Assembly formation. These Norms and Codes should cover everything from how to facilitate a meeting, how to raise a question, how to raise an objection, how to keep the Assembly from being dominated by a few individuals, how check with various forms of privilege and power, and how to arrive at decisions and conclusions. The Norms and Codes should be visited and/or referenced at each Assembly event to ensure that all participants, old and new, know what they are and that they constitute the guiding operating principles of the Assembly that ensures that it is productive and truly democratic.

Clear Agenda. To the greatest extent possible, everyone who attends the Assembly should know the Agenda before the Agenda meeting. Even when this has been communicated, it is essential that the Agenda be reviewed at the beginning of each and every Assembly meeting so that all participants are clear on what it is and what the Assembly is seeking to accomplish.

Clear Goals and Objectives. Each Assembly event should be clear on what it is focused on accomplishing. It is trying to investigate an issue, is it trying to address an issue (as in trying to solve it), or is it merely sharing information for folks to start investigating and deliberating on a question. This is critical to not waste people’s time and energy.

Clear and Concise Questions. These are necessary for the Assembly to sufficiently address a social question, engage in clear deliberations regarding it, and make sound decisions on how to address it. Bad questions can and will lead to run on discussions and inconclusive deliberations.

Strong, but even handed Facilitation. We recommend that each Assembly event have multiple Facilitators, playing mutually supportive roles. The Facilitators must be prepared to move the agenda, move the process(es), and intervene when and where necessary to ensure that everyone is abiding by the Assembly Norms and Codes of Conduct.

Detailed Note Taking. It is critical that detailed notes are taken and disseminated. These are essential not only for detailing what deliberations and decisions have been made, but to hold the Assembly as an institution accountable to itself and to the community.

Next Steps and Follow Up Procedures. At the end of each Assembly event the Facilitators should reiterated what decisions have been made and which body or group of the Assembly is responsible for carrying it out, how, and by when. The Facilitators should also move the group to ensure that each committee or working group has the capacity to fulfill the task or help it add to its capacity by recruiting more participants in the Assembly to get involved. The People’s Task Force is also tasked with making sure that each committee is clear about what its task is, that it has the resources it needs to accomplish its task, reiterate when it is expected to accomplish it, and aid it by organizing more support to the committee should it require it.

Key Components of the Assembly as a “Process”

Although the authority of the Assembly is expressed to its highest extent during the mass “events”, the real work of the Assembly, which enables it to exercise its power, is carried out through the organizing bodies and processes of the Assembly. The People’s Task Force and various Committee’s and Working Groups are the primarily organizing bodies of the Assembly. These bodies execute the “work” of the Assembly – the outreach, networking, fundraising, communications, intelligence gathering, trainings, and campaigning of the Assembly.

In our People’s Assembly model, the People’s Task Force serves as the Coordinating Committee of the Assembly. The Task Force is a body directly elected by the Assembly, serve at its will, and is subject to immediate recall by the Assembly (meaning that they can be replaced, with due process, at any time). The primary function of the Assembly is to facilitate the work of the Committee’s and the Working Groups. Which includes, ensuring that the Committee’s and Working Groups regularly meet, or meet as often as is deemed necessary; ensuring that each body has as a facilitator, an agenda, and note takers (if not provided by the Committee or Working Group itself); facilitating communication between Committee’s and Working Groups; ensuring that all of the actions of the Committees and Working Groups are communicated thoroughly to the Assembly; and coordinating the logistics for the Assembly gatherings.

Committee’s are standing, meaning regularly constituted bodies of the Assembly to deal with certain functions and/or operations of the Assembly. The basics include: Outreach and Mobilization, Media and Communications, Fundraising and Finance, and Security. Working Groups are campaign or project oriented bodies. They emerge and exist to execute a decision of the Assembly to accomplish certain time limited goals and objectives. Examples drawn from our experience include Working Groups that successfully campaigned for the release of the Scott Sisters, forced the Federal government to provide more housing aid to Internally Displaced Persons from New Orleans and the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, and successfully organized public transportation workers in alliance with the Assembly to save JTRAN (Jackson’s Public Transportation) and provide its workers with higher wages. All Committees and Working Groups operate on a volunteer principle, and for the most part, Committee and Working Group members participate on a self-selecting basis.

The Assembly “Institution”

Most People’s Assembly’s are relatively short-lived bodies, existing only for weeks or months, which does not allow or enable them to become “social” institutions. The Jackson People’s Assembly, in its present iteration (NAPO/MXGM organized a People’s Assembly in the early 1990’s that fought the Klu Klux Klan and designated human rights veteran Henry Kirksey to be first major Black candidate for Mayor), has been in continuous operation since 2005. Unlike many other models or examples of People’s Assembly’s, our model is focused on building an ongoing process and an enduring base of power. Sustainability is one thing that makes our Assembly an institution. But, it is not the only thing. What validates the Assembly as an institution more than its staying power is its social weight, which is its ability to act as a “dual power” or counterweight to the policies and actions of the government and local and regional business interests (i.e. capital).

It is the combination of staying power and attained social weight that makes the People’s Assembly a social institution in its own right. But, it should be noted that becoming a counterweight or a dual power was not by accident, it was by design, and required strategic thought, detailed planning, intensive education, capacity building, trust building, persistence and determination. We mention this because we want to encourage all those who are considering building a People’s Assembly to take the task of building an institutional vehicle of “dual power” seriously, as we think this is the primary reason to build this type of social movement vehicle.

What an Assembly Can Accomplish

When we look at the experiences of various people’s and social movements throughout history and throughout the world, we see that People’s Assemblies can and do wield different types of power (all contingent on factors of space, time, conditions, and balance of forces). Throughout the world today, People’s Assembly’s have been and are used to revolutionize people’s daily lives, change the balance of power in societies, and in some recent (meaning the last 5 years) instances have toppled governments and ushered in revolutionary change. Some examples include: Nepal, Greece, Spain, Tunisia, Egypt, and Burkina Faso to name a few.

What follows is a brief breakdown of what People’s Assembles have and can accomplish, based on the aforementioned and many other historic examples.

During periods of progressive or radical upsurge an Assembly can push for structural reforms and engage in mid-to scalable autonomous projects. One of the best examples of the exercise of this type of power are how the various Assembly’s in Venezuela were able to push and enable the progressive administration of President Hugo Chavez to make radical changes to the nation-states constitution between 1998 and 2010. Venezuela during this period is also a good example of what scalable autonomous projects can look like, such as the numerous cooperatives that were built, the housing developments that were constructed, and the significant land transfers that took place. Argentina during and after the crisis of 2000 – 2001 offers another critical example, of how the Assembly’s there encouraged workers to seize numerous factories and turn them into cooperatives.

During pre-revolutionary periods an Assembly can function as a genuine “dual power” and assume many of the functions of the government (state). Perhaps the best example of this over the past 10 years comes from the revolutionary movement in Nepal, where the revolutionary forces stimulated and organized Assembly’s to act as a direct counterweight to the monarchial government and the military. Ultimately, resulting in the establishment of a constitutional democracy and a more “representative” legislative body. Another recent example comes from Chiapas, Mexico from 1994 until the mid-2000’s when the Zapatistas were able create extensive zones of “self-rule” and “autonomous production” that was governed by Assemblies.

During revolutionary periods an Assembly can effectively become the government (state) and assume control over the basic processes and mechanisms of production. There have been few experiences or examples of Assemblies commanding this much power since the 1980’s in places like Haiti, the Philippines, Nicaragua, Burkina Faso, and Grenada. The recent experiences that come closest are Egypt in winter 2011 and summer 2013, and Nepal during stretches between 2003 and 2006.

During periods of retreat an Assembly must defend the people and the leadership that has emerged and developed, fight to maintain as many of the gains it won as possible, and prepare for the next upsurge. The experiences of the Lavalas movement in the early 1990’s and mid-2000’s is perhaps the best example of how Assemblies and other people’s organizations can weather the storm of counter-revolutions and defeats.

Leadership of an Assembly should be able to make clear distinctions between these periods and understand how, why, and when to act as a counter-hegemonic force during stable and pre-revolutionary periods of the current social system, and how, why and when to act as a hegemonic force during revolutionary periods. It must also be able to make distinctions during each period between acts of positioning (i.e. building allies, assembling resources, and changing the dominant social narratives, etc.) and acts of maneuvering (i.e. engagements of open confrontation and conflict with the repressive forces of the state and capital).

“Do note be afraid of the people and persuade the people to take part in all of the decisions which concern them – this is the basic condition of revolutionary democracy, which little by little we must achieve in accordance with the development of our struggle and our life.” – Amilcar Cabral

“…we’re trying to get ourselves organized in such a way that we can become inseparably involved in an action program that will meet the needs, desires, likes or dislikes of everyone that’s involved. And we want you involved in it…We are attempting to make this organization one in which any serious-mined Afro-American can actively participate, and we welcome your suggestions at these membership meetings…We want your suggestions; we don’t in any way claim to have the answers to everything, but we do feel all of us combined can come up with an answer… With all of the combined suggestions and the combined talent and know-how, we do believe that we can devise a program that will shake the world.” – Malcolm X

Written by Kali Akuno for the New Afrikan People’s Organization and the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement

We call for the elimination of thePolice Bill of Rights and the numerous civil service rules and judicial policies and procedures that give the police anonymity, freedom from having their behavior recorded and virtual immunity from accountability and prosecution.

End to the variouspolices of containment such as racial profiling, stop and frisk, gang injunctions, secure communities, etc.

End the “War on Drugs” and all of its related laws, policies and programs

Enact democratically elected “Police Control Boards”, with the power to fire, subpoena, and indict police officers for human rights violations

Demilitarization of domestic law enforcement, including eliminating the use of Drones and various surveillance operations and institutions.

Theredirection of military funding to social programs, such as public education, housing, health care, public transportation, and grassroots-controlled programs to prevent domestic and intra-communal violence.

Legislate and enact a National Plan of Action for Racial Justice that will make the United States government compliant with all the norms and standards of the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) on all levels

Suggested Strategies, Tactics, and Targets.

Boycott

Boycott Black Friday and all Major Commercial Stores and Outlets until the government meets the aforementioned demands on a municipal, state, and federal level.

Boycott various Missouri based businesses.

Divestment

We call on all unions, churches, investment groups, and all the various forces of civil society to divest from any Missouri state bond holdings until the aforementioned demands are meet.

Proposed Demands and Campaigns in Depth (from Let Your Motto Be Resistance found at http://mxgm.org/let-your-motto-be-resistance-a-handbook-on-organizing-new-afrikan-and-oppressed-communities-for-self-defense/)

Police Control Boards – Grassroots Police Control Board’s are intended to serve as directly elected oversight and disciplinary committees on a city or municipal level. They have the power to monitor and reform policies and to discipline, fire, subpoena and prosecute police or other law enforcement agencies operating within their jurisdiction. Campaigns to institute Police Control Boards are designed to avoid the pitfalls of Citizen Review Boards. Over the last 50 years various movements and communities have demanded Citizen Review Boards that have been taken over by Mayors and other local officials. Mayors have appointed their own political cronies to protect the police and the status quo. We propose that our movement organize electoral campaigns or referendums that transform the Charters of Cities and Counties to establish Police Control Boards via the limited democratic means that presently exist. Electoral campaigns for Police Control Boards become vehicles for extensive outreach and education to move our base and shape public opinion. Campaigns of this nature will require grassroots fundraising to retain the integrity of the initiative and pay for media ads, etc. They will also require forming alliances with various forces in the city or region that share similar interests and the development of a comprehensive strategy that builds enough power to institute this structural reform.

Anti-Containment Campaigns – These campaigns focus on stopping local, statewide, and national policies and programs that repress and displace our communities like racial profiling, check points, stop and frisk, weed and seed, gang injunctions, drug war policies, three strikes and zero-tolerance policies, etc. In addition to stopping these reactionary policies, we should also engage in proactive campaigns, like those that seek to abolish prisons.

Anti-Surveillance Campaigns – These campaigns should focus on forcing the state to become transparent about its extensive surveillance infrastructure and operations, and organizing campaigns that demand that they be wholly dismantled. These campaigns can start with initiatives that publically expose the methods and tactics used by various government agencies to monitor our social activities. We must also develop and effectively utilize a national database that exposes the undercover agents and provocateurs used by the government to infiltrate, disrupt, and discredit our social movements (this must be done through extensive factual documentation and not innuendo which can be and is very destructive to our movements).

Demilitarization Campaigns – These campaigns should focus on ending the military weapons and tactics used by domestic law enforcement. Law enforcement agencies throughout the US empire have enhanced their military capacities since the 1960’s, primarily focused on containing and repressing the national liberation and progressive social movements. For their arsenals they have acquired and incorporated military assault rifles, tanks, combat ready helicopters, grenades, hollow point bullets, camera and satellite integrate surveillance systems, infrared equipment, and sonic and microwave crowd control equipment, etc. Tactically, they incorporated various strategies of counterinsurgency and pacification, including envelopment tactics that surround communities, check-points that control traffic in and out of a community, “weed and seed” programs that deliberately divide communities, gang injunctions that criminalize social relationships and customs (youth fashions, informal associations, etc.), “stop and frisk” tactics that allow for illegal searches and seizures on a massive scale, and initiatives like “Operation Ghetto Storm” intentionally designed to terrorize oppressed communities. These campaigns are intended to heighten the contradictions between the people and the state (i.e. the government) and put the questions of institutional racism, national oppression, and US imperialism at the center of public debate within the empire.

Anti-Drone Campaigns – The introduction of surveillance and military drones over US held territories marks a critical new phase in the development of the repressive capacities of the US government. In order to preserve any notion of democratic space, we must launch local campaigns to resist the use of drones at the local and municipal levels and join or start campaigns that challenge their legitimacy and utilization throughout the empire.

Prisoner Defense Campaigns – These campaigns should focus on defending a) our political prisoners, prisoners of war, and political exiles from ongoing prosecution and violations of international law, b) our prisoners from unjust prosecution and human rights abuses, and c) community members from entrapment, false imprisonment, and false prosecution. These campaigns should employ every means of struggle we have available to us, but should rely first and foremost on methods of mass struggle, rather than legalistic methods that appeal to the enemy’s courts rather than the people.

Truth and Reconciliation Initiatives – Dr. Mutulu Shakur and other New Afrikan political prisoners, prisoners of war, and political exiles are demanding that the US government commit to a process of Truth and Reconciliation similar to that employed in post-Apartheid Azania (South Africa) to address the governments human rights violations during the COINTELPRO era and provide amnesty for the political prisoners, prisoners of war, and political exiles whom the US government transgressed against during this era. These Truth and Reconciliation campaigns can and should be launched on a local and regional level, following the model of organizers in Omaha, Nebraska regarding the Defense of the Omaha 2, which have targeted the role of local police forces in collaboration with the FBI in infiltrating organizations like the Black Panther Party and the Revolutionary Action Movement, and setting these organizations up via provocateur actions. These campaigns are essential to holding the US government accountable and fortifying the will and confidence of the people in their right and ability to successfully resist. On the Federal level people should link with and support the Truth and Commission organizing process being driven by Dr. Mutulu Shakur.

National Plan of Action for Racial Justice and Self-Determination – This campaign should be focused on building a movement with enough strength and power to force the Federal government to implement broad social reform program based on international law to combat institutional racism and it various manifestations and legacies in the US empire. The National Plan of Action for Racial Justice and Self-Determination is an outgrowth of the World Conference Against Racism (WCAR) in Durban, South Africa and the Durban Declaration and Program of Action (DDPA), and calls on the Federal government to commit to a transformative program of action to combat inequality caused by the legacies of colonialism, genocide, enslavement, and economic exploitation. In addition to campaigning for this demand on Federal level, we should also demand that city, county and state governments pass similar measures that respect, protect, and fulfill the full human rights of oppressed and exploited peoples.

Mike Brown, Ezell Ford and Eric Garner are among the latest victims of the ongoing genocide of Black People in the United States of America. Every 28 hours in the United States law enforcement, vigilantes, or security guards extra-judiciously murder a Black person. It is imperative that we as a people act upon every tragedy and hardship inflicted upon us by the government and the corporations to address the systematic genocide of our people in a protracted, programmatic, and strategic way.

The United States of America, as both a state and a criminal enterprise, has proven time and time again throughout its entire 238-year history that where Black people are concerned, genocide is the order of the day. The mass extrajudicial killings of Blacks aren’t just the result of rogue police officers and crazed racist vigilantes; it is a state sponsored program of containment designed to keep the Black nation in a position of subservience and subjugation to the White settler colonial nation.

The United States Government and the vast reactionary sector of the settler colonial nation who’s interests it was designed to represent, has been engaged in a war on Afrikan people from the time of its inception to the present day. The United States Government continues to lose legitimacy through its actions against our people. Through its refusal to address the ongoing human rights violations against the Black Nation the United States has shown itself to be the perpetual facilitator of the suffering of the Black Nation.

We cannot and should not count on our enemies – like the courts, and other forces of the US government or transnational corporations – to protect us. We have to protect ourselves. Justice for Mike Brown, Ezell Ford, Eric Garner or any of the hundreds of other Black women, men and children extra-judiciously executed by vigilantes, security guards and police every year will never be found in the courtrooms of the United States. Marissa Alexander is potentially facing decades in prison for firing a warning shot to defend herself and her children against an abusive partner while George Zimmerman is walking free after murdering Trayvon Martin in cold blood. Even in cases where the verdict apparently is in favor of our people, like in the conviction of Theodore Wafer for the murder of Renisha McBride, these sorts of trials uphold the status quo by not addressing the root issues behind the oppression of our people in a systematic way. The United States Government does not even have the right to try these cases because it is the primary architect of the state of emergency and continuous crisis the Black Nation is forced to endure. We cannot afford to be distracted from the work that must be done to insure the survival of our people.

The rebellion our people are waging in Ferguson must be supported. But, spontaneous rebellions are not enough. The only way we are going to successfully defend ourselves from genocide is to build a massive social movement with self-determination and self defense as its central unifying principles. We need a coordinated movement that strategically takes on the systemic oppression and exploitation that prevent Black people from exercising self-determination and human rights. We have to defend ourselves if we want to survive.

We call on people around the country to support The Organization For Black Struggle based out of St. Louis, Missouri in their efforts to secure the resources to hire a full time organizer. They have been working since 1980 to fill the vacuum left by assaults on the Black Power Movement and have been providing critical leadership in support of the people’s struggle. To connect with The Organization For Black Struggle visit http://obs-onthemove.org/.

The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (MXGM) believes that an essential part of our Movement for survival must be Self-Defense Networks.

We think there are two types of Networks that we have to build:

New Afrikan or Black Self-Defense Networks are alliances, coalitions, or united fronts of Black organizations whose purpose is to defend the New Afrikan or Black community from external (the police, FBI, white terrorist organizations, etc.) and internal (agent infiltration, intra-communal violence, etc.) threats to its safety and security.

People’s Self-Defense Networks are multi-national (or multi-ethnic and/or racial) alliances, coalitions, or united fronts whose purpose is to defend their communities against mutual enemies and threats and advance a common agenda based on shared interests, hopes, and aspirations.

Oppressed peoples and communities can and will only be secure in this country when they are organized to defend themselves against the aggressions of the government and the forces of white supremacy and capitalist exploitation.

The Every 28 Hours Campaign proposes a model for organizing:

The formation of Black Self-Defense Networks to defend our people and combat police terrorism. These Networks should seek to build Copwatch programs, engage in mass rights based education trainings for the community, serve as first responders to acts of Police Terrorism, and help coordinate mass resistance to these acts via mass mobilizations and direct action. These Networks should also be encouraged to engage in offensive campaigns, such as referendums to institute Police Control Boards.

The formation of People’s Self-Defense Networks to defend the lives and interests of all oppressed peoples’ and exploited classes against various forms of state terrorism. These People’s Self-Defense Networks would work as multi-national alliances to engage in a broad manner all of the tasks mentioned above to defend oppressed peoples and targeted communities, such as LGBTQ2GNC communities, against institutionalized racism, white supremacy, institutionalized sexism, patriarchy and state repression be it racial profiling, gender profiling, stop and frisk, mass incarceration, or mass deportations.

Waging campaigns for local referendums to institute Police Control mechanisms – i.e. community based structures that have the power to hire, fire, subpoena, and discipline the police on the local level. And waging massive, non-compliant campaigns of resistance employing BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanction) strategies and tactics on statewide, regional, and national levels.

Forming People’s Assemblies, on local, citywide, and regional levels to engage in program and demand development initiatives that will enable the people to engage in the broad implementation of people’s programs for self-defense and mutual aid.

The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (MXGM) and the Every 28 HoursCampaign seeks to strengthen organizing initiatives within Black or New Afrikan communities for self-defense, by presenting these initiatives with a comprehensive analytical framework and practical organizing tools to ground and unite them.

MXGM offers to Black and other oppressed communities three resources

1) Operation Ghetto Storm, a full report on the 2012 extra judicial killings;

2) Let Your Motto Be Resistance, an organizing handbook for self-defense; and 3) We Charge Genocide Again!, a curriculum for the Every 28 Hours Campaign, to further this objective

Links:

Operation Ghetto Storm: 2012 Annual Report on the Extrajudicial Killing of Black People

For more information on these resources or trainings please contact Taliba Obuya at taliba@mxgm.org

For coalition building and Self-Defense Networks please contact Watani Tyehimba at watani@mxgm.org.

]]>https://mxgm.org/the-black-nation-charges-genocide-our-survival-is-dependent-on-self-defense/feed/6https://mxgm.org/the-black-nation-charges-genocide-our-survival-is-dependent-on-self-defense/Oakland Black August Event Calendarhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/mxgm/~3/lRDPlH11kfI/
https://mxgm.org/oakland-black-august-event-calendar/#commentsFri, 01 Aug 2014 21:15:43 +0000http://mxgm.org/?p=3129Black August events brought to you by the Oakland Chapter of the MXGM:

]]>https://mxgm.org/mutulu-shakur-tribute/feed/0https://mxgm.org/mutulu-shakur-tribute/Black August Commemoration Kickoff and Chokwe Lumumba Birthday Celebrationhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/mxgm/~3/LIwGb7XzIZY/
https://mxgm.org/black-august-commemoration-kickoff-and-chokwe-lumumba-birthday-celebration/#commentsFri, 01 Aug 2014 18:37:45 +0000http://mxgm.org/?p=3115The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement along with Community Aid and Development Corp. present the Black August Commemoration Kickoff and Chokwe Lumumba Birthday Celebration on Saturday, August 2, 2014 from 6 to 10pm at the Davis Bozeman law office, 4153 Flat Shoals Pkwy, Decatur, GA 30034. Black August has a thirty-five year history of commemorating fallen comrades and embracing the principles of unity, self-sacrifice, political education, physical training and resistance. This year, we focus on the importance of health and wellness in our struggle and celebrate the birthday of our chairman Chokwe Lumumba. Chokwe Lumumba was a revolutionary activist, attorney, mayor of Jackson MS, and co-founder of NAPO and MXGM. Lumumba passed this year, February 25, 2014.